The families who lost everything in the fire have left very little trace behind them. But using a few surviving scraps of evidence we can put together a fleeting, patchy impression of their lives, leaving our imaginations to speculate over the gaps… Elias Page was a handloom weaver. His father was a small farmer, but …
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The great fire of West Haddon, 1657.
There were no local newspapers to report on a village disaster 360 years ago. The only reason we know about the fire in West Haddon is because the report of the Court of Quarter Sessions at Northampton Castle in the autumn of 1657 has survived the centuries. …upon the first day of August last there …